


Belling the Cat

by mklutz



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mensa, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 09:27:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/734128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mklutz/pseuds/mklutz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Rod's Atlantis, no science team explores a new area of the city without a military escort. They've prevented a lot of accidents this way and saved a lot of lives. He's never been the most militant of men, but he's diligent and hard-working and has an eye for detail like no one else. He also has three doctorates and a large body of Star Trek trivial knowledge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belling the Cat

In Rod's Atlantis, no science team explores a new area of the city without a military escort. They've prevented a lot of accidents this way and saved a lot of lives. He's never been the most militant of men, but he's diligent and hard-working and has an eye for detail like no one else. He also has three doctorates and a large body of Star Trek trivial knowledge. 

The point is, Rod logs at least one day a month rolling his eyes while Dr. Sheppard geeks out over crusty, dusty ancient technology. One nerd, one cool guy, one military escort who usually just hangs out in the doorway only half paying attention. It's exciting stuff-- awesome, awe-inspiring and fascinating-- but Rod knows how to keep his cool, and Sheppard emphatically doesn't. Sheppard pushes his dark plastic-frame glasses up higher on his nose with one finger and types furiously into his laptop with the other. He scratches absently at his flat-pressed hair, a hard part angled to his left. He makes preliminary observations on-scene: a full description of any device quantitatively and qualitatively followed by a few brief hypotheses. 

Rod's notes tend to go something like 12 x 5 x 7 cm; faceted crystal surface. Looks like TMNT shell. 1 x Shield??

Sheppard sometimes doodles the equations of flight on yellow notebook paper during meetings - numbers and letters elegantly tied together to define and describe the path of a fighter jet. Lines of the cramped, awkward writing typical of most men, like he never fully learned how to write. It’s the same writing as the Other Sheppard. This Sheppard doesn't talk about wanting to join the USAF, but Rod's been to a whole other universe. Rod knows things he shouldn't know.

It might be because of this- because of Sheppard's occasional distraction -that the device is accidentally initialized against protocol. All Rod really knows is that one moment Sheppard has stopped to scratch the back of one awkward calf with his other foot, and the next Rod feels shorter. Warmer.

Fuzzier.

*

"You're taking this pretty personally, Dr. McKay," Sheppard sighs after the meeting ends. He's sitting ramrod straight in his usual seat and blinking behind his glasses. "This is an excellent research opportunity and you should appreciate the sheer multitude of possible applications."

There are so many ways Rod could reply to that, but all he manages is a growl-hiss that’s really less masculine than he would like.

"Besides," Sheppard continues, oblivious, "if you would come to our Mensa meeting this week you could be the first cat to win a game of Power Barons. In space!" Sheppard likes adding "In space!" to the end of things, possibly to remind himself that he is actually living in an Ancient Alien city in another galaxy. 

Apparently having the architecture reacting to his every whim isn't reminder enough.

The fur along Rod's back raises and his tail is beating a staccato rhythm against the chair-back. 

"Come on, let's get to the lab. I have some really fascinating ideas about tests we can run on the machine." Rodney follows not because he wants to listen to Sheppard ramble on about his fascinating tests but because he's worried he won't be able to activate the conference room doors in order to leave on his own. 

And okay, maybe because Sheppard isn't an asshole. Just a complete and total nerd. And duck-footed.

*

Being a cat has it's ups and it's downs. On the one hand, no one expects anything of Rod. He doesn't have to play up to expectations, hold his tongue, do the right thing or even do any work. It's like medical leave without any pain-- all he really does is nap on Sheppard's monitor, belly pressed to the warm hum of technology below him and basking in it. If he hisses at certain people trying to pet him it's written off as because he's a cat right now, not because Rod doesn't want to have to deal with someone. 

Carson even says things like, “We’ve no idea of the state of his psyche and the ramifications on his central nervous system! He could be incredibly stressed out right now!” while Dr. Heightmeyer nods along. The truth is, Rod’s never been more relaxed.

Cats don't have to be everyone's best friend, and no one expects a cat to be nice to everyone. Quite the opposite, they expect to have to earn the trust of a cat. Rod wonders if this is what the other McKay's life has been like, minus the warm monitor naps and the sudden compulsion to bathe several times a day. No pressure to conform, just brutal honesty. People liked the other McKay a lot, back in the other universe, and they liked him in spite of or even sometimes because of his rudeness and arrogance and crappy inter-personal skills. Where Rod had figured out early on that no matter how smart you were you couldn't get anything done without a little social grease and a few niceties, the other McKay had barreled through diplomatic road-blocks, trod over expectations and shoved his way to the top, budding the line. 

Rod's jealous of that, sometimes.

The downside to being a cat is that when he wakes up he feels a desperate urge to contribute to the process but is physically incapable. His paws and claws don't translate very well to keyboard and mouse or touch-pad; his eyes see things differently. He freaks out, races around the room a few times to stretch out the kinks and them jumps elegantly up to settle on top of Sheppard's monitor again.

And damn if the utter geek doesn't smile at him indulgently.

Teyla and Ronon come to visit a few times that day, checking on how things are going. Teyla speaks to him softly and holds out her hand for Rod to sniff. Ronon grabs him by the scruff of the neck, shakes him twice and then tosses him onto his shoulders. Weirdly, Rod is okay with that.

"Probably wants some food," Ronon grunts and Sheppard blinks as if suddenly realizing that hours have passed and maybe they're both hungry.

"I could use some food myself," he says, adjusting his glasses again, and puts the computer to sleep. Teyla and Ronon are all indulgence for Sheppard's nerdisms and weird quirks. They've both submitted to more than one IQ test and several "edutainment" games in the past. 

It’s kind of a wonder they’ve managed to stick together this long as a team. The only reason they’re even allowed to be a team together really is that Rod took all sorts of field training at the SGC. He’s been on an off-world team, faced Goa’uld, had lunch with Teal’c and even General O’Neill and Dr. Jackson. He’s spent time with Dr. Carter, too, (gorgeous, blonde, smart). It might just be the surviving lunch with O’Neill and Jackson that got him his own off-world team in Atlantis, though. That takes balls. 

They used to have Ford, back before the Enzyme thing that sent him traipsing off across the galaxy, constantly high, but no one has said anything about adding another official Military representative to the team. It’s a high compliment. 

Rod wonders if the same thing will apply if he’s stuck as a cat forever.

*

The next day it's not Teyla or Ronon or Zelenka or even Elizabeth who show up, but Lorne. Dr. Lorne, "Doctor of art history," he had introduced himself with a lazy grin, and Rod had believed it until someone had mentioned that Evan Lorne also had a doctorate specializing in Anthropology and one in Geology. 

Weirdly, the Art History proves useful more frequently than the Anthropology. 

More weirdly, today Lorne is a cat. Small, sleek, and black. Sheppard is too absorbed in his calculations to notice at first, but Rod does. He and Lorne stare at each other, unblinking, tails slowly shifting back and forth.

Problem: Rod doesn't speak cat. He tries to say things like "I'm sure you'll work it out soon enough" and "Being a cat is pretty sweet, you should try it", but what comes out is a series of meows and mrrrrs and even eeps. And they make no sense to him. He gives it a shot anyway.

'Lorne?' "Mreow?"

"Nyao," Lorne replies. Rod has no idea what that means. Thinking back, he also has no idea how he knows that this is Lorne except maybe that he smells a little like him and there's a dab of pink paint on his back-right paw. 

Thirty seconds of uncomfortable cat-silence later, Sheppard looks up as if the sound has just now filtered through his numbers-haze and turns to see Lorne and Rod giving each other the stare-down.

"I guess we need more tuna?"

*

It takes a frustrating roll-call and two hours before the others figure out that this is definitely Dr. Lorne. No one else is missing though, and the off-world teams have replied to say that no one out there was turned into a cat yet. Rod doesn’t know whether to be embarrassed for himself or for everyone else in the city and the extreme lengths they go to in order to prove how stupid they are. 

He settles for washing his toes instead. 

He has theories and possibilities and ideas, and for once his math is nearly instinctual, but he has no way to record or express any of it. 

Lorne figures it out. He runs off while Rod is basking in the heat and purr of Sheppard’s monitor and comes back an hour later covered in paint. Covered in it. They’ll probably have to shave him because there is no way it’s going to wash out of his fur.

Lorne is pink and blue and green and black and stands on all fours making the most ridiculous sounds at Rod until he hops off the monitor and deigns to follow him.

 

In the art labs (Oh god, he can’t believe they’re called labs) Lorne has managed to knock down long rolls of paper and several cans of open paint. Two of the other art historians are kneeling, peering down at the mess in their incredibly lame but fascinated way. Rod tunes them out and takes a look for himself. Their “keen observations” are probably limited to, “great use of colour!” or “Oh, I think he’s trying to express his fear of conformity and military law through dstijl. Very subtle!”. 

Lorne has managed to scribble (though that’s probably the wrong word) in the paint with his claws. He’s got his name there, and a short sentence or two that the art majors can make sense of but which is (in content but not form) completely unimportant to Rod. More important is the still wet pools of paint available to him, the large expanse of white, white paper stretched out before him.

He can communicate.

*

Writing with claws and paws and fur is more difficult than anticipated. It’s incredibly slow relative to anything but especially to his thought process, it’s messy, and there are paw-prints everywhere. Rod is covered in sticky, smelly paint. Also, he gets sleepy easily and takes frequent naps, which means that the art majors (Ugh, -artsies-) have to set out plates of paint and cover them and clean up or organize or shift things to better enable Lorne and Rod to work. 

Eventually, someone calls Zelenka, who, thank you, sees where Rod is going and starts a series of “Meow once for yes, twice for no” questions that end with cat scratches and more time painting out the math and physics and theoretical Ancient wiring.

The next road block comes when Zelenka, eager to test Rod’s work before he’s gotten to the crucial point (he had fallen asleep again) and winds up small, orange, fuzzy and totally blissed out. Apparently he looks just like Major Kusanagi’s cat back home and she has taken to him immediately with belly rubs and scratches to the shoulder bones and base of the tail; sweet cream and fish from the mess. 

She might, maybe, have forgotten to take him to Carson for an hour or three, maybe distracted by the purrs and kneading. 

And it’s only sheer luck, really, that Sheppard even remembers to come looking for Rod and Lorne at three in the morning to take them back to his quarters for the night. He doesn’t seem to care that they’re sticky and smelly and rainbow coloured like a brand new 80s cartoon waiting to happen (Science Cats? My Little Cat-Man? He-Cat?). Instead he just passes out under the covers and doesn’t mind if Lorne and Rod pass out on his feet. 

All three of them kick in their sleep.

*

Zelenka and Kusanagi get along like a house on fire, and Rod would write a lengthy inner-monologue about how creepy that is except that he and Dr. Lorne have the same thing going on with Dr. Sheppard. 

Sheppard is nerdy, alright, but he hasn’t taken a break since Rod’s been changed except to pass out for a few hours. He mainlines coffee like it’s going out of style, and Lorne and Rod take turns butting their heads against him for petting when they return to his lab for naps. Painting as a cat is hard. Not to mention the mandatory art class in grade nine was the only course he got a C in. 

Also, since Rod has to look over Sheppard’s and Zelenka’s work in order to not waste time or space in his own, he’s come to appreciate the way Dr. Nerdalert works numbers. At first it was confusing, all sudden jumps and missing steps, but Rod sees now that Sheppard doesn’t need intermediate steps. Things just work for him.

The confusing bit then comes—if numbers have always come to Sheppard so easily, why does he look so surprised every time a piece of Ancient technology lights up for him the exact same way?

*

The pitfall to all this is that Lorne isn’t a lot of use. Everything he writes or paints is related to some project back on Earth where they got Elephants to paint. It looks and sounds like a colossal waste of time, and Rod wishes Lorne would just grow up and use his Geology degree already.

Meanwhile, Zelenka is so distracted by the attention he gets from Major Kusanagi (who is scarily affectionate) that he winds up daydreaming instead of pawing numbers, or just runs back to wherever she’s working in the city. A tiny Japanese woman with glasses and a small, fuzzy orange cat with multiple degrees: Atlantis’ first line of defense. 

Great.

*

In the end, Rod’s work doesn’t save the day, and neither does Sheppard’s. Thankfully it’s not Zelenka’s or Lorne’s, either, but unfortunately it’s Drs Jackson and O’Neill from the SGC. Apparently, Jackson and Carter went cat once on a rescue mission.

A rescue mission. It’s ridiculous! They infiltrated a Goa’uld vessel to get Teal’c back and they were cats for most of it. 

“Really,” Daniel says, setting up the device, “this is great timing. Jack and I have been trying to get approval to visit Atlantis since that first high-compression data burst.”

“Speak for yourself.” Dr. O’Neill has been antsy since they stepped off the Daedalus, eyeing the machines and walls and even the doors as if they’re dangerous. “Place gives me the creeps.”

Sheppard just blinks at them both, like he can’t quite believe they’re real. Rod can ignore the stars in his eyes as long as Sheppard and Jackson and O’Neill don’t get together to play Scrabble or Dungeons and Dragons later.

“Oh, wait—“ Jackson stops just before initializing the device and fumbles through the pockets of his BDUs for a small digital camera. “Your sister says hi, Rod, and so does Sam, of course, and they both want a picture.”

What would McKay do in this situation? The other McKay? He probably wouldn’t be covered in paint. He probably wouldn’t be a cat, either. Rod used to like cats. 

McKay probably doesn’t take photos unless he knows they’re going to be dignified. He would probably bat the camera right out of Jackson’s hand and tumble it to the floor and yowl to be restored already.

Zelenka sneezes, and Sheppard kneels down to scratch their heads, Lorne purring and closing his eyes, Rod ducking into the attack position. It feels good.

“Aaand say ‘cheeeeeese~’.”

Rod isn’t the other McKay. He holds things back and acts polite and makes friends with everyone. He sits through red tape and smiles and grins and never calls anyone a “complete and utter moron” or accuses someone of “trying to kill us?!” or scowls at Gate technicians while making clear how absolutely incompetent they are.

Rod isn’t the other McKay, and their Lorne is a major, their Sheppard is a surfing, golfing Lt. Colonel. But he wouldn’t trade them for all the ZPMs in Pegasus.

The flash nearly blinds him in the next second and he, Lorne and Zelenka wind up clawing long, raised red cuts into Sheppard’s hands.

Rod wouldn’t trade Zelenka or Sheppard or Lorne for anything. He might trade in their Jack and Daniel though.

Morons.


End file.
